Smackdown Books 2021

Ordinary Hazards
We Dream of Space
If These Wings Could Fly
We Are Not Free
The King of Jam Sandwiches
All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys' Soccer Team
The Companion
Punching the Air
Show Me a Sign
Land of the Cranes
Furia
Dragon Hoops
When Stars Are Scattered
Snapdragon
The Radium Girls: The Scary But True Story of the Poison That Made People Glow in the Dark
American as Paneer Pie
Tune It Out
The Gilded Ones
The Left-Handed Booksellers of London
Switch

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

H2O versus Beauty of the Broken

Beauty of the Broken is our choice to move up the bracket, although we're not sure that we would recommend either of these books to a friend or student.

Beauty of the Broken is a story with a whole lot of broken, but we struggled to find the beauty part. It is told well.  We rooted for the protagonist.  Right up until the last chapter, we kept thinking, surely, out of this mire will arise some hope, some redemption or beauty.  And then it ends.  And some of us weren't even quite sure what happened.  Compared with the second book, though, at least we had enough interest in this book to feel disappointed.

H2O.  Two of us are huge fans of dystopian, post-apocalyptic psy-fi.  We were pretty excited about this pick.  And then we read it.  This books starts with the apocalyptic event, and then just wallows around in it.  The protagonist grew increasingly unlikeable as the book went on.  Even having never survived an apocalypse ourselves, we were pretty sure we would have at least exhibited some sort of traumatic responses and, possibly, some common sense.  Nope, she just carried on walking over decaying bodies and writing emoticons.  As one partner stated, "You begin to hope she'll just go out for a walk in the rain."

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